"In Al-Bukamal, we destroyed 116 tanker trucks, which we believe will reduce ISIL's ability to transport its stolen oil products," Warren said. "This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike. We did a show of force, by -- we had aircraft essentially buzz the trucks at low altitude." The leaflets, which fluttered to the ground about 45 minutes before the strikes, simply said: "Get out of your trucks now, and run away from them. Warning: airstrikes are coming. Oil trucks will be destroyed. Get away...

Guns are becoming the prop of choice in campaign ads around the country this midterm year. Take it as another sign that the Obama administration’s gun control push is running aground: Firearms have become this year’s go-to accessory for candidates of both parties seeking to advertise their toughness and willingness to fight.

Whether you like it or not, in politics, the aggressor usually shapes the debate. This means that, in terms of political messaging, it’s best to be on offense so that you can advance your agenda on your own terms and on your own schedule. The reverse scenario is that you get blindsided and are forced to respond to your opposition. The more unprepared someone is to respond, the less effective their response will be, and the more likely that they’re constantly playing defense. In American politics, liberals (excuse me, “progressives”) are usually the aggressors. Generally speaking, it's liberals who want...

Official: White House seeks Syria response 'just muscular enough not to get mocked' By Justin Sink - 08/28/13 12:45 PM ET A U.S. official briefed on the military options being considered by President Obama told the Los Angeles Times that the White House is seeking a strike on Syria "just muscular enough not to get mocked." "They are looking at what is just enough to mean something, just enough to be more than symbolic," the official told the paper, giving credence to similar reports describing a limited military strike in the aftermath of last week's alleged chemical weapons attack. NBC...

News flash for conservatives, Christians, libertarians or anyone in America who embraces traditional values, the rule of law, common sense, basic math, a more secure nation or politicians who put you and your family first: You have lost or are losing across the board. Period. With the re-election of Barack Obama â€” and he and his campaign should be congratulated for not only running a winning campaign but, more importantly, for also exploiting the weaknesses created by the nanny-state â€” there is now no more mystery or doubt. Liberal ideology rules supreme in our country and to say otherwise, is...

With just over four months to go before the election, and Republicans ravening to make health care a frontline issue, the Obama campaign still appears to be pursuing a "wishful thinking" strategy. They are simply wishing that the Affordable Care Act, the president's signature domestic achievement, would go away now that the Supreme Court has delivered what they hope is a "final answer," to quote White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew. "I don't think the American people want to have this debate again," Lew said on Fox News Sunday, reflecting the "let's move on" approach reported by National Journal's...

According to the head of telecommunications, the word “Jesus” needs to be added to the list of 1600 forbidden words, which have been banned because they are considered obscene mauro piantaturin There is no room for Jesus on Pakistani cell phones. According to Vatican news agency Fides, the latest wild dictate has come from the Head of Telecommunications: It is forbidden to write the name of “Jesus Christ” in text messages. Mobile phone companies have been ordered to block text messages that contain certain words considered vulgar, obscene or harmful in terms of meaning and modesty. “Jesus Christ” and “Satan”...

The entire concept of winning the PR war against big government Socialism comes down to the concept of what is popularly called a meme. Just like genes, memes are capable of self-replicating, mutating and responding to targeted pressure. Memes also evolve by means of natural selection via the processes of mutation, variation, and competition. In short, strong memes can reproduce from mind to mind, will weak memes become extinct. The Democrats are very effective at using the meme idea. With most media from newspapers to magazines to cable news leaning left of center to hard left, the media of transmission...

President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said Monday that the White House has inadequately communicated with Americans about health-care reform. “We have to do a better job of explaining to the American people the principle things they will get out of this,” Emanuel said, on MSNBC’s inaugural episode of “Daily Rundown.”

Israel PR Reaches Gaza Arabs Through Facebook, YouTube By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem --- January 9, 2009...... As in every war, the battle for hearts and minds is a critical one. Public opinion has a direct effect with lives on the ground. In the current defensive war in which Israel has been forced to defend herself from Hamas terrorists, rather than focusing on conventional print and broadcast media, both official and non official Israel spokespeople are using Web 2.0 social networking applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Hamas has been attacking Israel almost on a daily basis...

WASHINGTON - When Barack Obama announces his choice for vice president, the real payoff may come during the next few months — one text message at a time. Obama's campaign plans to break the news of the Democratic candidate's vice presidential pick to people who have signed up to receive e-mails and text messages from the campaign. It should give Obama's team access to tens of thousands of cell phone numbers that could be used to mobilize voters under 30 on Election Day. "What Obama is creating is this army of individuals, these grass-roots activists, who are out there trying...

Some Israelis have described being moved almost to tears by a rare viewing of the Great Isaiah Scroll, the best preserved and most complete Dead Sea biblical scroll, on special exhibit this summer at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum for the first time in 40 years. The familiar, unfulfilled prophecy of the 2,100-year-old scroll - "and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" - undoubtedly arouses emotion here. But there is also a thrill born...

Last week, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an employer does not have the right to view employees' text messages without a warrant. The ruling is based primarily on who pays for the storage of the content. For e-mail stored on company's servers, U.S. law is quite clear that employers own the content because they pay for the storage. The Court, however, does not view text messaging in the same way: because employers do not pay for the storage, but instead pay only for the service itself, employers do not have the same legal access to this...

Before anyone jumps on me, lol yes I have read the Treo 650 user's guide, but it lacks the specificity I need. I know that in "telephone" mode, I can press and hold the 0 key, and it becomes "+," i.e. the equivalent of 011, and that I now am in international dialing mode. However, in messaging mode, in the "To:" field, I cannot get the + symbol to appear the same way. If, while in that field, I press and hold 0, all I get are a string of 0s. The T-Mobile person (I'm using the Treo with T-mobile,...

The Hillary Clinton campaign has cracks that have begun widening as the pressure increases for her to win a state. The Los Angeles Times reports on cracks at the very top as Hillary's top aides battled over messaging. In the end, Mark Penn won -- and Hillary kept losing: Before the Iowa caucuses, senior aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton fell into a heated argument during a 7:30 a.m. conference call about the basic message their candidate was delivering to voters. Mark Penn, chief strategist and pollster, liked Clinton's emphasis on her "strength and experience," and he defended the idea...

Thirteen-year-old Morgan Pozgar, of Claysburg, Pennsylvania, was crowned LG National Texting champion on Saturday after she typed "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from "Mary Poppins" in 15 seconds.

SMS Revolution Shahram Rafizadeh Oct. 19, 2005 Blocking SMS (Short Message Service) is a new communications instrument that is taken very seriously by the new Iranian government and those in the Ministry of Communications. In order to confront and control SMS messaging and the relevant communications technology, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his hard-line government ministers have seriously decided to take the necessary measures to limit the use of a technology that at critical junctures can be used by the government's critics and opposition groups. Iranian authorities believe that they have successfully completed their efforts to block internet access and have...

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050422/wl_asia_afp/japanchinaprotests_050422075719China shuts down anti-Japanese websites amid fears of more protests Fri Apr 22, 3:57 AM ET BEIJING, (AFP) - China has shut down several anti-Japanese websites to prevent people from organizing more protests through the Internet, in a further indication the government fears the demonstrations will get out of hand. AFP/File Photo The websites had carried messages calling for large-scale demonstrations on May 1 and May 4 in Shanghai, Nanjing, Wenzhou and Chongqing cities. May 1 is marked as Labor Day in China, while May 4 is the anniversary of the landmark 1919 May Fourth Movement -- in...

Soon after the November elections leading Democrats agreed that the party was ailing and in dire need of a new direction, a new focus, new ideas to lead it forward. "It's critical we realize why the electorate voted the way it did," Representative Bob Menendez, of New Jersey, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said of the party's devastating loss in the presidential election and its setbacks in both houses of Congress. In February, House Democratic lawmakers held a retreat in Virginia to hash out what to do next. Something miraculous happened. They recovered—or at least they're behaving that...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/politics/13covert.html?hp&ex=1110690000&en=13c49ccf73932e2e&ei=5094&partner=homepage Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 different federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. An examination of government-produced news reports...

Elephant Party is back...and we need you! Our mission is to get persuasive "blurbs" out to the public that reinforce the Republican message and refute liberal myths. What are "blurbs" and what is ElephantParty about? Example of a blurb: Synopsis: Most people are too busy leading meaningful lives to trouble with the blur of political news. Clips and phrases are gleaned, but for many there isn't the time to delve into the issues. That's where "blurbs" come in handy: a comical animation, a simple but enlightening picture, a set of quotes. The most effective communication is brief, visual, and humorous....

When M. gets home from school, he immediately logs on to his computer. Then he stays there, touching base with the people he has seen all day long, floating in a kind of multitasking heaven of communication. First, he clicks on his Web log, or blog -- an online diary he keeps on a Web site called LiveJournal -- and checks for responses from his readers. Next he reads his friends' journals, contributing his distinctive brand of wry, supportive commentary to their observations. Then he returns to his own journal to compose his entries: sometimes confessional, more often dry private...

<p>LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Too much text messaging? You may need professional help.</p>
<p>More and more people are succumbing to so called "technology addictions," spending hours tapping on mobile phones or surfing the Internet, one of Britain's best known psychiatric clinics said on Saturday.</p>

ST. LOUIS - (KRT) - Peer pressure, gossip and even compromising photographs have been part of high school for generations. But now that many teenage conversations have moved from school hallways to the Internet, locker room fodder can devastate young lives almost instantly. A recent incident at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in Ladue, Mo., made that clear. When a female student consented to send a male classmate a revealing photo of herself over the Internet, the photo ended up circulating online not only among students at MICDS but also among those at many other private and...